*Sora-X-Riku

COPYPASTED FROM THE BRILLIANT DOCTOR STEELE.



This won't be offensive to most of my watchers (if not all), but I watched some drama unfold over the last day or so about yaoi pairings and yaoi in general.

I know I live in a little secluded bubble of solitude when it comes to drama for the most part, and I also live in a bubble of complete solitude when it comes to yaoi. Personally, at this point, I see het art for KH and I'm shocked (and it becomes something fresh and exciting, I might add). However, the attitudes against Kingdom Hearts yaoi in general really, really piss me off. In fact, at this point, I find it to be stereotyping fans of the genre and general bigotry to be the biggest problem.

Yes, I'll use the term "fans," as it'd be ignorant to assume all yaoi fans are female. There are male fans of yaoi, and they're all awesome from whom I've met, and I imagine they dislike be secluded from something they also enjoy.

I'll also point out there's a difference between "against" and "not a fan of." I'll use the term "against" to define the individuals that are actively, for lack of a better term with the same connotation, "bitching about" yaoi. "Not a fan of" denotes general apathy--for example, I'm not a fan of Ouran High School Host Club yaoi, and I prefer the pairings with Haruhi--but I certainly don't take to the streets with torches and curses for Hitachiin twincest. People who like the heterosexual or lesbian pairings over the gay pairings in Kingdom Hearts can do so without attacking those that like yaoi. We can live in one big hippie world of love, you know?

I'd also like to point out that I'm generally referring to KH yaoi during this, but I'll occasionally use examples from other series that I've had experience with.

Most people that I have encountered that dislike yaoi usually have the following complaints about yaoi:

1. "The characters aren't gay!"
2. "That's disgusting!"
3. "Yaoi fangirls are so annoying!"
4. "They don't like each other!"

There's probably more that I'm not thinking of right off the bat, but I'll run with these for the moment.

1. "The characters aren't gay!" - The first line of defense, which most yaoi fans immediately counter with what I call the "Nomura Statement"--that he left the characters' relationships ambiguous to allow for creativity of the player and allow them to be interactive within the world of Kingdom Hearts. That means that your Sora/Kairi has as much validity as my Sora/Riku, and vice versa. Honestly, it means that anything's possible. If you try to bring up "hints" of a pairing ("Sora and Kairi with the paopu fruit drawing"), they can be countered immediately with something else ("They're just friends!"/"Sora also cried about Riku and talks about him more in KHII."). According to Nomura's own statement about the game, you could say anything you like is true. I even hesitate when I say -I- dislike a pairing for KH, and generally like to emphasize that it's just my personal opinion. In short, no, the characters aren't gay, but they're not written as straight either. Personally, I like them all to be a mix to keep it lively.

2. "That's disgusting!" - I can't really argue against someone's beliefs that homosexuality/two men having sex are wrong. But to each their own. This just falls back onto the thought of general tolerance. They can have those thoughts, they can have those opinions, but using those opinions to entice fighting from people is just stupid. It's also called the back button. If you don't like Xigbar kissing Demyx, if you don't like Olette scat, if you don't like Roxas weight gain, if you just DON'T like it, then keep your mouth shut and take the higher ground, we'll respect you much more for it. Someone else's cuddling Axel/Roxas picture isn't a personal forum on the evils gays. Hell, feel free to have it on your journal, it's your journal and that's an appropriate place to rant, I think. And, if some yaoi fan comes up to your journal, ranting and raving on your opinion, politely tell them in so many words that they need to STFU, which brings me to the next point...

3. "Yaoi fangirls are so annoying!" - Every fandom has annoying fans. Yaoi fans find certain yaoi fans annoying--I know I do. It's called human nature, you're going to like some people, and you're going to get pissed off at others. But saying that a certain group of people are "ALL" alike based on a personal experience of yours is simply stereotyping a group. I imagine most would think I was trivializing racism if I used an example of it here, so I won't. Most people against yaoi assume "all" fans are: under the age of 18, American, female, in high school, are overly zealous, "Weeaboo," are complete perverts, are stubborn to the point of ignorance, and hyper-defensive. Clearly, they have never bothered to visit y!gallery or gotten to know them. Yaoi fans are just as diverse as their non-yaoi counterparts, though, I'll admit the majority are female. The only thing I can say that yaoi fans are certainly ALL alike is on the fact they like a relationship between two males. Some don't like the sex aspect of yaoi because it makes them uncomfortable, some like only certain pairings at certain levels of closeness, some love every single flavor of the depravity rainbow like myself. As for the "weeaboo" terminology, I know that some fans desperately try to distance themselves from the term--my rant on the use of the term is for another day. Also, clearly these people have never seen bara art. :3 Not all yaoi is created equal, like I said.

4. "They don't like each other!" - This is more so a problem encountered by fans of what I call "rival" pairings--two characters that dislike each other are paired up. You know, like Marluxia/Vexen, Axel/Saix, Zechs/Heero, Orochimaru/Sasuke, Grimmjow/Ichigo, and the like. At least for Kingdom Hearts, the defense of "Nomura has no pairings!" can be somewhat used here, but for Marluxia/Vexen, where Marluxia clearly brought about the death of who he's paired with, that's when the best reasoning comes into play:

Who the FUCK cares? Seriously, if a person enjoys a pairing in their series of choice, what is so inherently wrong about it? Plus, most people have crafted their mental scenario of their favorite pairing, and made it their own. The way I love my favorite pairing isn't the way you may love the same pairing.

In conclusion, I'd also like to boil this down ultimately to "respect." Just be freaking NICE to each other. This message also goes to those participating in yaoi fan-on-yaoi fan drama.

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Gods know, I can only agree and copy this in hopes of MOAR people seeing it. Spread the word. CIVILITY!